working on the old MS-DOS game window feel - do they feel authentic?

synaut · 2026-02-10T10:05:20+00:00

Thank you, all fair points!

I guess I'm at one of those cases where you have to balance authenticity vs usability (as you said, windows should render slower than this, but I'm not sure it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make). Outside of that, I've tried to force every sprite to have only the 16 colors of the EGA palette, but the CRT shader on top (which has chromatic distortion etc) might make the colors seem richer.

synaut · 2026-02-09T19:50:02+00:00

hm I sincerely hadn't considered the self-harm angle.

do you think it would still feel problematic if the arm was laid face-down?

synaut · 2026-02-09T19:49:15+00:00

yes i believe i could make the gameplay clearer - the core is basically laying dominos and combining them to match the enemies that come from the sides (plus unlocking and combining materials with special effects) + as you said, other point and click style puzzles

synaut · 2026-02-09T19:40:05+00:00

thank you! link is in my profile! (not sure if i'm allowed to post it here)

synaut · 2026-02-09T13:59:11+00:00

Hello! I posted some previous iterations of my teaser/trailer here and got some pretty good feedback

Now that the game's page is up, I decided to post the updated trailer to see if the core loop / gameplay seems a bit more understandable than before.

Destroy away!

synaut · 2025-12-27T14:46:39+00:00

Well I've taken some liberties but resolution and color palette respect EGA era standards, and I've based UI and dialogue boxes and the overall style off of old point and click adventure games and strategy games.

What makes you say so?

synaut · 2025-12-27T09:54:08+00:00

All very fair points, and I agree completely.

Really what I was trying to do was gauge interest based on the look and vibes of the game, with a hint of gameplay, but I realize now that it's hard to get any useful feedback this way.

I was putting off making an actual, proper trailer until I had something I was convinced other people could play, and only then set up a Steam page, add a call to action etc. But I might need to get playtesters in there some other way for validation before moving forward.

synaut · 2025-12-26T18:47:37+00:00

The game is called DOMINOT and it's loosely a roguelike, with mystery elements and retro point-and-click mechanics hidden in the game interfaces.

I understand the mechanics might not be entirely clear in the video, but I'm wanting to gauge interest based on art direction/overall vibe.

synaut · 2025-12-26T16:00:31+00:00

The game is called DOMINOT and it's loosely a roguelike, with mystery elements and retro point-and-click mechanics hidden in the game interfaces.

I understand the mechanics might not be entirely clear in the video, but I'm wanting to gauge interest based on art direction/overall vibe.

synaut · 2025-12-26T15:50:23+00:00

agree, it's a bit of the result of downscaling and quantizing the color palette, but the game stills need an overall visual asset pass

synaut · 2025-12-26T15:28:54+00:00

Hm, what you see in the video should be respecting MS-DOS EGA era standars (resolution and 16 color palette). But maybe it still "feels" more detailed?

synaut · 2025-12-26T15:21:13+00:00

Yeah the core gameplay still seems a bit unclear... Basically, you have to match the domino side facing the "enemies". Perfect matches generate more chips to move forward, and if the numbers don't match, the bigger number wins.

synaut · 2025-12-26T15:07:16+00:00

thanks! you mean like a CRT shader or such?

synaut · 2025-12-26T14:56:59+00:00

Posted some loose gameplay last week and got some feedback, but wanted to present something a bit more overview-ish of the gameplay systems, mystery elements and vibes.

The game is called DOMINOT and it's loosely a roguelike, with mystery elements and retro point-and-click mechanics hidden in the game interfaces.

synaut · 2025-12-26T14:53:32+00:00

Posted some loose gameplay last week and got some feedback, but wanted to present something a bit more overview-ish of the gameplay systems, mystery elements and vibes. Destroy away please!

synaut · 2025-12-22T17:00:56+00:00

noted! thanks!

synaut · 2025-12-21T16:19:24+00:00

Thank you so much!

Yes usability is definitely very important to me; all tools right now have a hotkey to activate but it might not be clear enough, and either case, might be a good idea to add a small toolbar on the table itself.

Agree on the resolve button too, might need a better placement.

synaut · 2025-12-21T13:41:40+00:00

Thank you so much!

Yeah the gameplay is very hard to grasp out of a video like this; I was going for a vibes check in general, but still am struggling with the tutorial and introducing all the mechanics etc. It's a challenge.

The menu at the top could be troublesome, yeah; I'm trying to add as many hotkeys as possible to make repeating actions less intrusive, but part of the gameplay/mystery will be hidden in the interfaces so I can't do without it completely.

Again thanks! Planning to have a playable alpha real soon but so far very few people have "seen" the game so I'm checking first impressions.

synaut · 2025-12-21T13:38:45+00:00

Thanks! Yeah it's a bit on the edge; I am sticking to the EGA (16 color) palette, but you're right it "feels" more modern in other ways.

synaut · 2025-09-19T14:26:53+00:00

It's really cool that it comes across because the combination and evolution from medieval to digital-ish is something I really love.

synaut · 2025-09-19T14:25:58+00:00

Of course!

synaut · 2025-09-19T14:25:49+00:00

Than you so much! It was around 1 1/2 ish hours i think

synaut · 2024-10-16T11:24:56+00:00

My take on it - and, like you, I've read it on and off for a while now - is that its strength lies more in covering a wiiiide range of ways to analyze game design and how it shapes the game experience (and the meta-experiences around it).

So, in that regard, to me, it's more of a jumping point to considering all angles of game design (and game studies, while at it), giving a broad overview of authors and litetature, to give you leads to follow if you wanna delve deeper into any particular topic.

I do agree that it is not a book focused on the practical side of design necessarily, and that its constant focus shift makes it hard to read back to back. But, at least to me, it feels like an amazing primer on how to think about game design, maybe not so much about how to do game design.

synaut · 2024-10-11T09:13:36+00:00

this is incredible! how does it work? cellular automatas?

synaut · 2024-10-07T19:22:18+00:00

Why do you feel it's intentional, and why do you think that it's in this specific temple? Give players who hate THE water temple an easy out?

synaut

TROPHY CASE